Web Hosting Blog

cPanel 11 and Plesk 9 are the latest control panels available for the web hosting service providers. These panels enable them to provide their web hosting services to their clients. With the help of these control panels provided by the hosting firms, clients can manage different tasks involved in the web hosting accounts, these panels simplifies the tasks for the support staff as clients are able to carry out majority of the tasks themselves. There are many different tasks that can be simplified with the use of these control panels, it involves the management of web services, E-mail, DNS and Database on both half’s i.e. client and administrator. Normally most of the web hosting service providers provide control panel access as a standard feature for the web hosting accounts. These control panels are simple to use, a person with no knowledge of web hosting too can operate it and hence this is one of the major reasons why these control panels have gained popularity in the web hosting industry.

Until now cPanel is compatible with Linux Servers only. Which means cPanel can be provided by web hosting firms only to the clients that choose Linux Servers for hosting their web sites. Which is not the case with Plesk, Plesk control panel is compatible with Linux as well as with Windows web hosting platforms. Plesk is majorly used by web hosts due to its stability.

cPanel and Plesk have their own advantages when used by customers and administrators of Web hosting services. Usually Plesk is provided with Windows Web Hosting service and cPanel with Linux Web Hosting solutions.

Below one can find the advantages of Plesk control panel.

>> Windows Support : Plesk works on Windows Web hosting service allowing web hosting service providers to provide Windows based web hosting packages to the customers. Customers ASP and ASP.NET websites can only work on Windows servers, so Windows Web Hosting service needs to be opted. Customers usually prefer Plesk with Windows Web Hosting.

>> Windows Service Support : As Plesk can be used on Windows based servers it has the capability to integrate to integrate with multiple Windows based programs. It has an advanced feature support for some Windows programs such as Microsoft SQL Server which can be managed by Plesk 9.0 by server administrators and clients with their own databases which makes it an ideal control panel solution for Windows.

>> Cross Platform Compatibility : From a system administrator’s point of view,  one may find it more beneficial having a single control panel on all the servers. Mastering a single control panel is much simpler than mastering two. As a customer one may find it easy since it means that one should be able to get the same sort of features from both Linux as well as from Windows web hosting solutions.

Though Plesk seems to be perfect for Windows web hosting packages, it can also be used for Linux packages.

cPanel is a preferred control panel for Linux web hosting services. Benefits of cPanel are as follows.

>> More Features of Linux : cPanel encompasses more features for Linux web hosting solutions than Plesk control panel. cPanel can be used in combination with different add-ons such as Fantastico script installer and CFS firewall to provide customers a wide range of services which can be used from their web hosting accounts control panel, such features can’t be used on Plesk Linux Web Hosting servers.

>> Reseller Support : Apart from Plesk 9.0 version, other versions does not provide support for reseller web hosting accounts whereas cPanel offers good support for resellers. cPanel is available with the Web Host Manager (WHM) panel which allows resellers to control all different aspects of their reseller accounts including the configuring of their own packages and the setting up of client web hosting accounts.

>> Faster Loading : cPanel’s internal pages load more faster than those of Plesk and certain tasks are carried out quicker than they would be with the Plesk control panel. cPanel does not rely on external databases in much cases, this is one of the reasons of the smooth functioning. cPanel has proven to be more reliable than Plesk on Linux.

To sum it up, both the control panels cPanel and Plesk provide web hosting service provider firms a reliable control panel service but come with their own advantages and disadvantages. But, Plesk for Windows and cPanel for Linux is the perfect solution offered by web hosting firms.

Parallel’s Plesk Control Panel is considered to be a highly recommended and one of the most used control panels in the Web Hosting Industry today. Plesk control panel can operate with Windows as well as on Linux platforms.

Plesk is an ideal solution for Dedicated, Shared and Virtual hosting. Plesk control panel is the most stable and secure multi-platform web hosting control panel available for users. Most of the leading web hosting service providers use Plesk for the purpose of increasing their per server profitability. There are many benefits of using Plesk Control panel. Windows and Linux server’s can make use of Plesk.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Plesk’s RPM installation and modular design allow Dedicated Hosting providers to satisfy the needs of tech savvy customers. It deploys and is ready in a very short time. It provides high performance solutions which is comprehensive yet inexpensive. There are many unique features such as XML-API which automize the provisioning process and integrating 3^rd party applications, included in Plesk. It includes a complete Software Development Kit with multiple backend utilities delivering service providers and customers more power to adapt their offerings as well as an avenue for easy up selling and additions.

Shared Web Hosting

Plesk’s tiered self administration and uniform multi platform design is perfect for the management of a shared web hosting environment. The control panel strengthens providers for managing multiple domains running reliably on highly scalable  architecture optimizes for the reseller channel. A person with no technical background too can easily create, manage and set-up accounts while customers can administer their virtual domains without the support from the technical staff. Plesk satisfies the needs of both simple and complex web hosting system configurations at the same time allowing full customization.

Virtual Web Hosting

Plesk efficiently delivers management power with a small footprint making it an ideal for Virtual Private Server Hosting solution. With the use of Virtuozzo, Plesk users can deploy templates of Plesk control panel systems. Virtual servers provide an isolated dedicated server environment. Getting upgrades has never been so simple before from a single VPS console. Plesk and Virtuozzo are unsurpassed in their ability to increase ROI and generate revenue for the professional web hosting provider.

Hyper V is a Windows Server Virtualization tool which is code named as Viridian, previously it was known as Windows Server Virtualization. Hyper V is a hypervisor based virtualization system for x64 systems. Hyper V has proved to be an effective tool of server virtualization for many businesses especially Web Hosting business.

In this the administration or configuration of the Windows Server can be done on a remote Windows Server or desktop by redirecting Microsoft Management Console (MMC) pointing to the Core Server allowing easy point and click configuration.

Hyper V supports isolation in the terms of partition which is a logical unit of isolation supported by hypervisor. It is necessary to have atleast one parent partition which runs Windows Server software. Child partitions can be created using hypercall API which is an application programming interface, exposed to Hyper V. The virtualized partition does not have access to the physical processor. Hyper V can hardware accelerate the address translation between various Guest Virtual Address spaces by using an I/O Memory Management Unit (IOMMU). IOMMU operates independent of the memory management hardware that is used by the CPU.

Reasons To Choose Hyper V:

1] The issue of management which is why Microsoft System Center has a real competitive advantage with the ability to manage the physical and virtual servers within the same toolset, rather than treating the virtual machine as a container.

2] Server Virtualization is seen as a commodity feature by customers hence expecting it to be a part of the operating system.

Scalability And Performance:

Hyper V disk throughput is 150% as claimed by Microsoft, than that if the VMware ESX server. The virtualization overhead appears minimum in Microsoft and QLogic’s testing of three workloads with two identical servers which one ran Hyper V and the other running directly on the hardware. The virtualized system maintained between 88 and 97% of the number of IOPS which the native system could sustain and which switching to iSCSI there was less than a single percentage point difference.

HyperVM is a multi-virtualization, multi-server and multi-tiered software which permits VPS seller to manage, provide and delegate Open VZ or Xen based Virtual Private Servers (VPS). HyperVM is available in an integrated form with Lxadmin hosting control panel. With the use of HyperVM the service provider is enabled to deploy a full fledged web hosting system. As said HyperVM is integrated with Lxadmin, all Lxadmin functions can be accessed from HyperVM with no requirement of logging into Lxadmin. HyperVM enables users to manage VPS across multiple servers transparently. It specializes in the provision of mechanism to manage their networking configuration i.e. gateway and IP address, from the Control Panel. HyperVM has a complete pool of IP addresses to fulfill large scale management.

The virtualization software plays a helpful role in the Web Hosting business.

Below are Steps to Configure, Set-Up and Add a HyperVM Server

A] Configuring HyperVM Automatically

In the module of HyperVM one can find options where the HyperVM can be added through an automation process. This makes it simpler for you as well as for the clients.

When a client selects an OS (Operating System) to be installed on the VPS, below method instantly creates the configuration instead of the pre-selected configuration by you.

• Go to Package
• Hit the Configurable Option
• Click on the Add New Configurable Option
• In the Option Name, correctly write Operating System without any quotes
• In Add Option enter Operating System’s name
• Create a new option for every Operating System

B] Setting Up A HyperVM Package

Follow following Steps in order to create a HyperVM package in WHMCS

• Configuration >>> Services/Product
• Click Create New Product >>> Enter Name of the new package
• Set product type to Other >>> Untick the Show Domain Option
• Now, Configure pricing, welcome E-mail and the other options of configurations as normal
• Go to Module Settings tab of the product configuration
• Here select HyperVM in the module Type drop down menu
• The page would get refreshed with the options for HyperVM package
• In Type field enter the type of server the package is for (OpenVZ or Xen)
• Enter Plan Name as appearing in the plan name listed in the dropdown in HyperVM when creating a new server
• In the OS Template field enter exactly as appears in the drop down menu
• In Server box you need to enter the slave server to set it on
• Select the Number of IP’s to be allocated.
• Set Up a custom field on the custom fields tab of Username which is set to show on the order form and be required so users can enter their desired username while placing the order.

This ends the configuration of HyperVM Package.

C] Steps to Add a HyperVM Server

• Configuration >>> Servers
  

• Add New Server
  
• Add Master Server Name, IP Address >>> select server type as HyperVM from the dropdown list >>> Enter HyperVM username and Password
  
• Click Create Server to finish the process

As we are aware that as there are advantages of certain things so are the disadvantages . Same is the case with VPS hosting too. As there are advantages of VPS hosting so are some disadvantages.

VPS offers two options to choose from Linux VPS Hosting and Windows VPS Hosting. Essentially there is one root operating system which creates the hardware node. Multiple Virtual nodes can be created on top of the Hardware nodes with the use of software’s. Virtual Nodes make use of the same registry and system files to maximize efficiency and minimize usage of hard disk and memory. This enables an independent execution of virtual servers without interference from other virtual servers connected to the same hardware node or physical server.

Disadvantages of VPS Hosting:

1) Risks:

Most of the web hosting companies does not provide the users with their own IP address. In case the user is used to shared hosting service this is a risk that you are familiar with. But incase user is seeking a more cost effective alternative than the dedicated server and then as most users are unaware, you might be sharing your IP address with users present on the same server. Then in this case there is a greater list of your web-site getting banned because of the illegal act done by some of the other users present on the same server, as the IP itself gets banned.

2) Limitations on Hardware:

The fact that a single server is shared by many users on a same physical server cannot be denied, hence there might arise competition between sharing resources with other users hence resulting in slower services during peak hours. At sometime it might also happen that the website may not respond at all.

Account holders may not have access to certain resources such as RAM and processor during some moments due to data log jams though this is not very common. Such set backs might majorly affect the online business of the users.

3) Reduction in Control:

Under some Virtual Private Server platforms, users share software components. Although unlikely this sharing may result in an ability to configure individual settings independently of the clients that are hosting on the same physical server.

4) Increased Responsibility:

Extra control comes with increased responsibilities. Under the shared VPS solutions users might not be responsible of for the updates and upgrades for the operating system. The software installations, security software installations, site maintenance, software patches, site security and other would be the responsibility of the account holder.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) or VPS Hosting as more commonly referred, is enabled with the partitioning of a high specification machine into Virtual Servers. Like the dedicated servers, VPS too provides private environments to the customers.

VPS offers similar features as that of a dedicated server. The VPS web hosting is available in two options 1. Windows VPS Hosting and 2. Linux VPS Hosting.

Multiple operating systems or software’s can be run on the same physical server, yet offering completely private server environment similar to the dedicated server environment. Every VPS hosting environment is entirely independent from other VPS systems and memory, the CPU processes and disk space can be segregated for each Virtual Private Server. This offers most of the benefits as that of a dedicated server but at much lower prices.

Below are few other benefits of Windows VPS hosting and Linux VPS Hosting.

a) Individual secure and separate VPS hosting environment

b) Offers the ability to host multiple web-sites on a virtual server(s)

c) Offers enhances control which includes server back-ups and reboots

d) Complete anti-virus protection

e) Virtuozzo power panel offering

f) Plesk control panel for Windows

g) Complete remote control and access of VPS servers

h) The ability to install and configure whatever applications the client wishes on the VPS server

i) Highly flexible servers can be upgraded without any kind of interruption in the services(depends who the web host is)

j) Fully managed servers which include updates on operating system.

VPS hosting provides customers with more secure hosting environment, with complete root access and the ability to configure and install anything that the customer wishes within his/er environment. On a particular machine there are more than one virtual servers, none of the users can view, change, configure, de-configure, install, uninstall  or delete any data from the other VPS account on the same server.

To learn more about VPS features, benefits and usage, please refer to the below given links:

• Future Web Hosting Initiates With Virtual Private Servers

• Virtual Private Server (VPS) And Types Of VPS Control Panels

• Windows Virtual Private Server Hosting Explained In A Simple Way